Songs of Conquest - HOMM2-inspired turn-based strategy adventure game - now on Early Access

[Monkeyfinger]

Wait, what, EA in 2022?

I've never gone from pleasantly aroused to fully limp so fast. A game that took 2+ years to go from first advertisements and trailers to early access will need at least another 2 years to reach full release.

This take sounds smart on paper but often falls flat in real life. I've seen quite a few games hit EA late into their dev cycle.

 

[Naraya]

For me, the problem with EA is that I have zero interest in playing the game before the 1.0 release. I want the finished product and EA usually means that I won't be playing it for a long time still.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

These projects just pass the threshold of significant number of people giving a fuck and the devs don't really care either, cause EA. No matter how excited you are initially, there's just so many "look at the attack animation Brandon made last week!" shitposts one can take before moving on.

 

[Curratum]

These projects just pass the threshold of significant number of people giving a fuck and the devs don't really care either, cause EA. No matter how excited you are initially, there's just so many "look at the attack animation Brandon made last week!" shitposts one can take before moving on.

This is what happened to me and my initial excitement about Gloomwood but it's getting close to 2 fucking years now and that shit hasn't even got into Early Access yet and they don't even hate a date announced.

 

[Tavar]

For me, the problem with EA is that I have zero interest in playing the game before the 1.0 release. I want the finished product and EA usually means that I won't be playing it for a long time still.

This, especially because many finished products aren't really finished these days.

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/867210/view/3133946724559413335

Development update #42
Oh boy! It feels like ages since we last published a devblog. Time goes fast when you are having fun and trying to prepare a game for release! So, I figured it’s about time we published an update on how the development is progressing.

You might have figured it out already, but the troop we recently teased was a Zombie! The human troops of the Loth faction will return to fight once more after their deaths. That’s what I call commitment!

Spoiler

Carl, our game designer, has been working with all the texts of the game. And I do mean ALL of the texts. As we are preparing the game for translations we need to make sure that all the pesky spelling errors and sloppy copy gets eliminated. He is also adding more lore-focused flavor texts to really make the game world feel coherent and alive. Kim, our freelance writer is also doing her part to improve the texts, but specifically focusing on all the dialogue in the campaigns.

At the same time our design intern, Albin, is helping out with providing context to all the lines of text in the game. Meaning that he describes where the text is visible in the game and what it actually means to the player. This is very important to the translators as it gives them a much better understanding of how the game is actually played.

This is how the context texts look in the translation tool we use. The translator can use it to double-check specific phrases.

The programmers have been hard at work with eliminating bugs. We took a one-week vacation from ordinary development to just focus on smashing most of the worst offenders. In total the team was able to fix 77 bugs, meaning that the game now plays much better than before!

After the bug fixing the programmers created a limited press demo version for journalists and YouTubers. We have been distributing this demo to a select few exclusive gaming media outlets and gaming content creators. Why? Well, we are happy to announce that on the 1st of March you’ll be able to see much more material from the game. Expect things like an analysis of the gameplay and comments regarding the current state of the game. We’ll notify you on all of our social channels when the videos and articles go live!

This is the main menu shown in the press demo. Please note the text “Alpha preview build - Not final product”. That means that things you see in the preview articles and videos can and will change.

There have been tons of quality-of-life improvements and small visual tweaks made by both the look and feel team and the code team. Here are just a few of them:

The pathfinder used to happily suggest a path right through the enemy's zone of control. Tssk tssk. Poor tactical thinking if you ask me!

The pathfinder now avoids the zone of control, avoiding the frustrating need for manually choosing a path around it.

A lot of our testers have asked for it and we finally gave in. We’ll now have a damage preview if you hover over enemies in combat. If you don’t like this feature it can be turned off via options.

David has made sure that even the destructible terrain objects have a nice gib effect. Bring out the wood chopping axe and let the splinters fly like birds in the air!

Most of all team members have also been focusing on the defense and siege mechanisms of the game. A big change is that the defense towers no longer fire arrows on the Adventure map. Instead, it adds a small garrison to the towns and can also be upgraded to include ballistas in the defending towns. When battle is initiated, all the troops provided by the towers in the town are merged into two troop stacks and added to the town’s defenses.

Here’s what it looks like when you build towers for the Arleon faction. If you upgrade them they will also provide ballistas.

The AI is also getting better and better. It is getting the most attention from Niklas and Robin. But also from Marcus, who is supposedly on parental leave but still manages to squeeze a few hours into the production each week in order to also care for his digital… baby?

Improvements include, but are not limited to: The AI´s recruitment will not instantly interrupt current tasks, meaning that things like exploration will get proper time to be finished. In previous versions, the AI would just stop and turn back instantly if the need for more troops was considered to be too high. But it will now wait until the current task is "done" or its forced predicaments for that task changes. This will indirectly make the AI more expanding and seem more offensive.

Recruitment will now be forced if an AI Wielder has given its troops away to another Wielder. This avoids having weak AI Wielders roaming the map.
If you, as a player, claim an AI map entity or kill an AI Wielder, it will increase the AI’s grudge towards you. High grudge means higher probability of you being selected as a war target.

AI will now also send more than one Wielder if a threat is large. This also automatically includes spreading out offense/defense if the threat is considered smaller.

I’m not entirely sure what this sketch from Marcus means, so I’ll just leave it here and let you try and figure it out for yourselves. Drop a comment below and let me know if you can figure it out!

Finally, just to let you know: We still haven’t decided the release date or the price point for the game. But the plan is still to release the game in Q2 this year. So, no need to ask about the release date. But feel free to drop a comment and tell us what you think of this update and if there is anything in particular that you want to know more about!

Anders has created a variation of Adventure map walls for all of the factions. Can you spot which one is from which faction?

That’s it for this time. Stay safe people and drop a comment if you have any questions, comments, or just general appreciation for what we are doing!

/Magnus and Team Lavapotion

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[udm]

I'm surprised that I actually like the pixel art graphics. It has a certain charm to it (maybe because it looks smoother than your typical jRPG shit), though still can't be compared with NWC's pre-rendered/hand-drawn art.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Development update #43

 

[catfood]

The smooth looking UI and hero portraits clash with the grainy looking pixel art.

 

[wishbonetail]

Pixel art looks nice but animations and pseudo3d only make it look flat.

 

[Orald]

Pixel art usually does not appeal to me, but this looks very good. I am looking forward to the release date. The developer seems to have a clear vision of what they want to accomplish, and they are open to constructive feedback from players.

I also like that the developer gives credit to his team, even the intern gets a shout out.

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[wishbonetail]

Lets hope it comes out in this century.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Naraya]

Presentation is top notch, crossing fingers for the gameplay!

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/867210/view/3128319763050078378

Early Access starts at the 10th of May!

Yep, the time has almost come! We are merely a few weeks away from releasing the game in Early Access. To celebrate the announcement we have compiled a new trailer, explaining and showcasing more parts of the game.



Please gives us a thumbs up if you are looking forward to play the game and leave a comment below if you have any questions at all!

We truly look forward to see you all take part in our growing community!

Sincerely,

Team Lavapotion

 

[Cromwell]

meh EA, I wont get stonesharded again.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Map porn by Marc Moureau

Let's celebrate
@songsofconquest
's exciting new trailer with two maps I had the pleasure to create for the game. Now... How about a third one ?

 

[cyborgboy95]

Time to gear up...
https://twitter.com/songsofconquest/status/1508530252649316357/photo/1

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

Andi finalized the Win / Loose details for the post-combat screen of Rana!

 

[cyborgboy95]

Development update #44